
A total of ten civil society organisations from across Pakistan participated in a consultative workshop organised by Center on October 17, 2018 in Islamabad to discuss and jointly work towards promoting the advocacy agenda against the practice of child marriage in Pakistan.
Center formed a caucus of ten like-minded organisations in 2017 as part of project titled, ‘Promoting Legislation, Prompting Action to End Child Marriage in Pakistan’, funded by AmplifyChange. The caucus was expanded to add two new organizations working against child marriage, having presence in Sindh and Balochistan.
Local and provincial civil society organizations including Bedari, Strengthening Participatory Organization, Blue Veins, Sujag Sansar Organization, PEACE Foundation-Pakistan, SPARC, VSO Pakistan, UGOOD, Plan International and Center for Communication Programs Pakistan, based on individual organizational strengths, committed to complement and support each other and build on each other’s work against this harmful traditional practice prevalent in Pakistan. Additionally, it was decided to name the caucus, ‘Caucus to End Child Marriage in Pakistan.’

Several avenues for collaboration were discussed, pushing the legislative agenda forward. Each initiative was discussed in detail including Center’s contribution and member organizations contributions to retain clarity and define responsibilities. It was agreed that initiatives will be launched across Pakistan with the support & contribution of local organizations. The member organizations agreed to jointly push the policy agenda forward not only at the federal level but also at the provincial level by engaging with policy makers as well as religious leaders and journalists to improve knowledge at grassroots level communities, religious seminaries,
higher educational institutes and among the media. Furthermore, it was agreed that a nationwide, joint social media campaign will be launched focusing on reaching policy makers and ensuring young voices from the communities & educational institutes are heard through social media platform. The caucus organization also agreed to jointly work towards launching a national convention, not only to highlight the harmful traditional practice but also to generate discourse with key stakeholders on the need to amend legislation along with creating mass awareness among the public.

